Item 37 - Consider Amending City Council Meetings Rules and Procedures

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City Council Meetings Rules and Procedures July 18, 2023 Page 2 • City Council meeting end times: In November 2021, the City Council discussed the possible implementation of a curfew/termination time for City Council meetings. This practice is in place at other jurisdictions including the Cities of Irvine, Mission Viejo, Orange, San Clemente, Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Palm Springs. The proposed resolution calls for meetings to terminate at 12:00 AM (midnight), with the City Council determining at 11:00 PM which of the remaining agenda items can be considered and acted upon prior to 12:00 AM midnight and continuing all other items to a future City Council meeting. The City Council could vote to extend a meeting beyond 12:00 AM midnight to discuss specified items by a two-thirds (2/3) vote. • Rules of Procedure: City Council meetings currently follow Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. Staff recommends changing to Rosenberg's Rules of Order, which have become the municipal government standard over the past several years and include more streamlined and easier to understand rules for the conduct of meetings. • Public Hearing Speaking Limits: For clarity and to establish specific timeframes, a new subsection has been added to the resolution for public hearings related to land use, entitlements, and appeals to provide the project applicant/appellant ten (10) minutes for their initial presentation and five (5) minutes for rebuttal comments following other public comments during the hearing. • Decorum Enforcement: Language has been added clarifying procedures pursuant to recently enacted State law regarding the right of the presiding officer to clear the meeting room if there is a disturbance. • Teleconferencing: A new section has been added to specifically state that the City Council shall follow the provisions of the Ralph M. Brown Act regarding teleconferencing and a Teleconferencing Policy, to be discussed below. • Clerical Edits: Clerical edits have been made to change the title of the City Clerk, provide for gender -neutral pronouns, and for capitalization and punctuation standardization. Teleconferencing On March 21, 2023, the City Council received and filed a report regarding the Brown Act and Teleconferencing Provisions (Exhibit 5), providing information about the manner under which teleconferencing for legislative bodies is authorized under the Ralph M. Brown Act (Government Code Section 54950 et seq.). Staff has subsequently found that in June 2021, the City Council was provided with a City Clerk Policy Regarding Teleconferencing that is now outdated and needs to be updated to include more recent changes to State law. Staff recommends that City Council approve an amended Teleconferencing Policy, and in doing so, the City Council has two options: 1) Adopt a policy that restricts City Councilmembers to only participate in meetings remotely via the traditional/pre-pandemic provisions for teleconferencing including, but not limited to, advanced notice of need to teleconference, address